RIP Sweet Pogo; Welcome Home Happy Go LUCKY

We went with the fake tiles because of the weight. With that much floor space and the thickness of wood we are using, we would not be able to life the cage without taking it apart (A LOT) with ceramic, stone, etc. floor tiles. The type of fake tile that we bought is actually rough textured (and has more grip to it than the ceramic tiles that he currently has in his cage). If it seems like he is slipping, I will just put a bunch of reptile carpet or something similar over it.

Re leaving the wood natural - he poops in his cage - I would have to seal the wood (hence chemicals anyway) or nastiness would end up getting into it and fouling the cage. That is why we chose the paint and sealant - to make a moisture block that I can actually clean with real disinfectant without worrying that it will get INTO the wood. If I had a bathtub pooper, I would have gone with natural.

I have spent countless hours going over DIY stuff and tried to come up with the best balance that is still fairly easily disinfect-able. That's another reason that for now I am choosing not to do one of those huge styrefoam (no clue how to spell that) walls, etc. - I would scrape all of the grout etc. right off trying to clean up Mr. Pooper's messes! Since he has had a cocchidia overload in the past, I am paranoid about being able to get all of the germs out.

Sounds like you have everything covered and Lucky is a very lucky dragon that you're going to all this trouble to give him a paradise for him to live in Can't wait to see the finished product!

Lucky is still doing well. His growth has slowed down considerably. He is now about 10 months old, 20.75" and 660g.

He's already full adult side, wonder if he'll grow a bit more? Castiel didn't he's the same length & has been since he was 9 mo old. He's about Lucky's weight, too. And in full brumation :shock: Cierra and Nathaniel are also asleep, Nathaniel from mid July, Cierra slept for 2 wks, then woke up and now she's sleeping again. So now I have two, Imp and Gabriel.

Lucky might still grow some more, he won't be fully mature until 2 years old, so he has time. Imp has lost some weight, he's just over 400g again and I'm working hard to get him to eat but he's being stubborn. He wants to brumate and I won't let him. He's 19" long and not enough weight for his length to brumate, he needs to be fatter before I'll allow it, just because they can lose weight when sleeping.

Here's hoping that Lucky feels no need to sleep this winter, they're so young! Mind you Cierra and Nathaniel slept last winter at 1 1/2 yrs old.

I've been home for awhile, fibro or something flare. Have to get xrays on my hips to see what's going on in there and have requested a rheumatologist that I found near where I live and hopefully he can help me. But could take months before I see him, if he's even taking on any new patients. Only time will tell on that one.

And my grandkids (Leo's 3 and Safara is 22 mo) are with us all weekend. I told you, or you read, that my son & his dog Bella moved in with me? Bella is no trouble and either is Eric. But his children can trash a house in a few minutes, so we have to child proof more. I'm off in a bit to get some child proofing for doors and cupboards, so that won't be an issue anymore. Plus more stuff for them to play with. They have heaps at home but Tara keeps forgetting to get some for here. Guess will have to work on Eric for that when he takes the kids home on Sunday.

It's been a very interesting 3 weeks, Eric has learned lots and I've learned more about my son, which has been priceless. Being a mom to an adults is completely different than from 13 years ago when he was 19-20, that was the last time we lived together. It's been fun, though, Eric has a safe place to live and I have his company a bit during the week, just enough that we don't get on each other's nerves :laughhard: :laughhard: We haven't driven each other crazy yet, which is also a good sign after almost a month.

So that's my news. Life has sure changed! The kids love living with giant dragons, but they're not allowed to hold them because Tara would freak (Eric's ex) if she heard the kids were contaminating themselves...oh well, they can see them in their tanks. All 3 camp out in the living room all weekend. But Eric takes them out alot. I won't be held responsible for them, they're too quick for me.

It's been awhile since you posted, are you ok? And Lucky? Is he sleepy? Imp has actually disappeared into his hide over a week ago, he also put newspaper across the front of it so I can't see him. I pulled him hide up just to make sure he was sleeping and he was. So I've left him alone.

Gabriel is the only one up, his poor belly is getting bigger and bigger. He spends most of his day, when he's not on his shoulder, standing up or resting against Cierra's cricket keeper. I don't think he's feeling well, he wouldn't eat his worms today.

Has Lucky gotten any bigger?

Hope everything is ok!

My little brother died suddenly (he was only 32) a couple of weeks ago, so I have been dealing with a lot of stuff. It was the first family death that my kids are old enough to understand. The last four months have been hard all around for me.

Lucky is a bright spot, though. He went through a few months where he was pretty grumpy all of the time, but he seems to have gotten over that in the last week or so. He can't make up his mind about brumation. I made a dark cave area for him and he goes in it sometimes. He is definitely going to bed MUCH earlier now - closer to 5 pm (as opposed to 8 pm). He pretty much follows outside - he goes to sleep when it gets dark out even if his cage lights are still on. For a while, he wasn't eating much too, and when he is out of the cage he looks for nooks and crannies to dig and burrow in (he shoved himself between 2 pillows at one point). So, I think part of him wants to brumate, but maybe because he can't find moist soil like he might have in the wild, his body isn't letting him do it.

He is 21.5 inches and his weight has been wavering between 685g and 710g. He now hates being put in the bin that I use to weigh him (but he is way too big to be on the scale with no bin), so weighing him is a fight that I don't always win. At this point I am just trying to make sure he doesn't have any big weight loss. He has been in the same range for a couple of months. He has not shed in a long time, and his face is starting to turn pink (his shed color), so I think he might shed that pretty soon.

He eats roaches (100% bred by me) and superworms (also 100% bred by me), and baby food squash still. I give him collard salad, but I have only gotten him to take collards a couple of times. He loves chewing on non-edible things, though. He completed chewed up the fake plants I had in his viv - I didn't realize it for a while, but one day I noticed that he must have been gnawing on a couple of the leaves for quite a while (so I took the plants out). The other day during his out time he ran over to a re-usable grocery bag with a nylon handle - he started gnawing on the handle. I moved him a way and waved some collards in his face - he actually grabbed them and ate several big bites. So now I have to watch him like a hawk when he is running around (before I was only worried when he went somewhere high up, but now who knows what strange item he might start chomping on!).

His custom viv is coming along and now we are down to the finishing touches (and cage furniture that I had my husband build as well). After that is done, we will set up all of the lights, turn them on, and let any fumes from the finish burn off for a couple of weeks. Hopefully, he will be in his new home before Christmas. Wait until you see this viv!!! It is fabulous and big (4x2x2). The only reason we didn't make it bigger was that it would be too heavy and we might need multiple sets of lights.

We are moving the piano out of his room to make room for a huge set of shelves, so that I can get a bunch of stuff off of the floor. Then he will have more "safe" space to run around. The piano is a disaster waiting to happen, so right now I just have stuff all around it so that he can't go under, behind or up inside it. It is going to be sooooo nice to have shelves there instead. We already call that room "the lizard room", but my goal is to really have it be a lizard room someday - as in free range for Lucky all day in that room. There is also a guinea pig in there now. The guinea pig loves to kick stuff out of her cage and I caught Lucky eyeing a guinea pig poop like he was going to eat it once!!! It would have probably been fine, but I would rather not have a puking lizard because he ate a poop. Oh, I am also buying him a cat window seat. I will put a chair near it so that he can come off the window seat onto the chair and then climb down to the floor.

Enough out of me! Thanks for checking in.

Prayers for Gabriel.

I will put up pics of Lucky soon (and his new cage once it is done).

I'm SO SORRY to hear about your brother, My son is the same age, how devastating for you and your family. No wonder you haven't been on here!

I wouldn't worry about weighing Lucky, he's alot more than Imp, who's 440 (at least he was that before he went to sleep last week). He wasn't sure about brumation either, but he quickly got the hang of it. He's been up and down 3x now and I need to get him up again after the grandkids go home on Sunday for bath and poop, then he can go back to sleep. Nathaniel has been down since mid July, Cierra has been down since beg Aug and Castiel since the end of August. Castiel is now too big for his hide, he can get in there but he ends up being 1/2 in and 1/2 out. I have him covered but he keeps moving forward so his snout sticks out, it's hilarious to watch. Yet he's fast asleep during all this. Gabriel is sharing Cierra's tank because I know she won't wake up until probably Feb.

As for Lucky and brumation, he's going through winter slow down, he really doesn't want to sleep but his body is telling him to slow down. It's all normal behaviour for a 10 mo old, especially because he's larger than most dragons but still has the hormones of a sub-adult. I wouldn't worry about it. He might just crawl in that hide and sleep for a day or two, he might not. Cierra and Nathaniel freaked me out last year they went down so early & this year even earlier. At least I knew that could happen so wasn't surprised. Every dragon I've had over the last 10 years never went down until January, so July surprised me for Nathaniel this year. There are alot of types of brumation and then there's just winter slow down. There's a great article about it above, you should read it, I read it for many winters in a row, especially the first winter, and it helped me get through it.

Thanks for the prayers for Gabriel, they always soothe me. He's on borrowed time with that aneurysm in his belly, but he's hanging in and because I'm home on disability, I can snuggle him every afternoon to put him to sleep. He goes to sleep even earlier than Lucky, normally, and I forgot to change the timers with the change of time last weekend, so have to get to that. He's up at 5a right now instead of 6 and his lights are going off at 3:30 instead of 4:30. Sometimes he makes it to 4:30, sometimes he's sleeping before that. He's gotten very round.
He likes to use Cierra's old cricket keeper, I've always called it the behive :mrgreen:

And the latest of my grandkids, Leo is 3 and Safara is 2. We were making a chocolate cake :lol:
My sister came over and we all made it together. Little cupcakes that they called donuts and a full cake. It sure was alot of fun to work together. I don't see my sister that often, but love it when she can find time to come over. We take the kids to the park if it's not pouring rain and wear them out :lol:

Leo really likes my giant dragons, so he's allowed to hold Gabriel when his sister isn't around. She's very rough with them so when they're here together, the dragons stay in their tanks.

I also got a picture of Imp flaring up his colours in his bath:

And you can vent to me anytime, about anything.

Boy what you are doing for Lucky is wonderful, that's a 75 gallon tank, he'll have so much room and said you're making it so he can climb up? He'll love that. And then the cat window seat, he'll love that. And yes, you'll love when he's free roam.

I'm still laughing about eating those plastic leaves (I learned my lesson about those and never bothered) and eyeing the guinea pig poop :laughhard: That is just too funny. He is such a character!

Things have changed since Eric moved in with his dog Bella. Being off because of osteoarthritis in my spine (had to wait for an MRI) means I was home to walk Bella. So the walking has helped a bit and I need to start at the gym slowly. Between the ankle surgery last Sept, then bronchitis in May for 5 weeks and now being off since Aug 19 because of severe pain (which isn't as bad now) it's been a rough year for me. Having the kids here EVERY weekend has been rough, too. Soon I'll be making arrng to go out alot over the weekend so Eric can take care of the kids himself, as when I'm there he depends on me too much. It's too small a space and they have to sleep together, I'm in a 1 bedroom and the bedroom is my sanctuary, no kids allowed! He gets so overwhelmed but tough, they're his kids. I'm just so glad he left Tara, best thing he's ever done and we've had alot of good talks since he moved in, but he feels uncomfortable, as a 32 yr old living off his mom...tough beans I say, time for him to grow up a bit more.

And now enough from me! I'm just glad to hear from you.

I love all of your picks - the kids are so cute (and the grandkids too)!

So, I am trusting petsitters with Lucky for three days while we are gone for Thanksgiving. They will come every day that we are gone and refresh his salad. I will leave a water bowl for him (I tested that out and saw him drink from it this week). He is huge at over 700 grams, so I think he can go three days without bugs. He has been sleepy a lot too - he fell asleep standing up.

But here is the good part - his new cage is almost done and I have pics:

Here is the front view - it is sitting on some wood, but that will be covered.


The doors open down and have locks -



Here is the top. One hole for the CHE and one hole for the basking lights to slide.


My husband gave him a side window so that he would be able to see out the real window from his cage if he wanted to.


This pic is sideways, but those are led lights (that I can change the color of by remote), and his UVB is attached to the roof too.


Here are the back vents (from vents are holes just below the doors) -


And here is the back of the cage -



He also has some furniture - it is a hide/basking platform that we can easily attach and detach from the side of the cage:



AND FINALLY, here are some pics of my guy:



He has since developed a clown face (right around his mouth and nose is going to shed soon).

Hi beautiful Lucky, his colours just pop. That is one great tank he's getting, he's going to have alot of fun with the changes, once he's used to everything. Great job! Can't wait to see pics of him inside his new space!

I'm sure he'll be fine for 3 days without bugs, but expect to give him lots when you get back :mrgreen: I'm sure he'll remind you :lol:

Have a great Thanksgiving!